


the stages of falling

by gandmvsm



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alcohol, Azure Moon Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Eventual Romance, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Light Bondage, Oral Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Spoilers for Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Teacher-Student Relationship, Wedding Night, Weddings, but it's ok because byleth is too, dimitri is the worst at pillow talk, look if the first real emotion you felt was when your dad died it would mess you up too, therapy would not solve all of Dimitri's problems but it would be a good start
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24365662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gandmvsm/pseuds/gandmvsm
Summary: “Perhaps I should wish that we’ll be together forever,” Dimitri says at the top of the Goddess Tower. “What do you think?”Something rips itself out of Byleth’s heart at those words, crawls its way into her chest, up her throat, into her mouth-He laughs and continues, “You must admit I’m getting better at the art of joke telling.”The thing dies on her tongue before she can learn what it is.-Five times Byleth deals with emotions, or: Five times Byleth and Dimitri sleep together.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 30
Kudos: 354





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for this chapter: very brief mention of passive suicidal thoughts, teacher-student sex and the associated power dynamics. Any other warnings in tags!

_Dimitri…_

_He seems quite sincere…_

_But I sense darkness lurking within…_

**0**

“Perhaps I should wish that we’ll be together forever,” Dimitri says at the top of the Goddess Tower. “What do you think?”

Something rips itself out of Byleth’s heart at those words, crawls its way into her chest, up her throat, into her mouth-

He laughs and continues, “You must admit I’m getting better at the art of joke telling.”

The thing dies on her tongue before she can learn what it is. “It didn’t sound like a joke,” Byleth says instead. She chokes it back down, hiding its bitter taste behind her blank face.

**1 - Grief**

Guardian Moon is cold. Ethereal Moon was too, Byleth remembers, but not in the same way. Ethereal Moon nipped at her fingers and toes in a way that drove her to spend her time in front of a fireplace with a cup of tea in hand. Guardian Moon cuts to the core and snuffs out the warmth of the world, leaving her lifeless.

Or maybe that’s only true for her. After all, Byleth’s the only one who locked herself away after their disastrous mission. She’s the one who keeps forgetting to stoke the fire in her fireplace, only noticing when it’s too dark to see the pages of Jeralt’s diary. She’s the only one obsessed with finding Kronya and taking revenge for her father’s death with her own hands.

Byleth shivers. The fire has gone out yet again, and when she glances out the window, the last gasps of daylight are dying as well. She hasn’t eaten or drank anything all day. Sothis urges her to at least leave her room while the dining hall is open, so she can get something to eat without needing to cook it herself.

On the one hand, she knows Sothis is right. She needs food to sustain herself while she waits for her chance to strike back. On the other, though, going to the dining hall during dinner means people will see her and offer her their pity. She doesn’t want pity, she wants Kronya’s head on a platter.

Sothis wins out in the end. Byleth steels herself and opens the door. She’s lucky that her room is close enough to the kitchens that it’s only a short walk, but that’s enough time to cross paths with more than a few of the students. She ignores their calls of “Professor?” and “Good to see you out and about,” pausing only at a more subdued “Teach.”

Claude has always been good at reading her expressions or lack thereof. “You want to go after Kronya, right? Just say the word and I’m there with you.” He looks maybe a little self-righteous, but at least he promises action and not sympathy.

She joins the back of the line behind Edelgard, who offers her something similar. A pledge of support from the Black Eagles, and a personal promise to follow where Byleth leads. “We can’t let them get away with this,” she swears, and Byleth knows she means every word. Like Claude, she undoubtedly has her own motivations, but she’d be a powerful ally.

Byleth eats alone in a corner of the dining hall and considers speaking with Claude and Edelgard again when her head is more clear. Her only plan right now boils down to “cut off Kronya’s head with a sword,” and she doesn’t need to bring anyone along to do that.

Today’s special is some fish cooked in some Faerghus style, which means it’s both well-cooked and completely tasteless. Once or twice a student or monk starts to walk in her direction before something makes them reconsider, but otherwise she is mercifully left alone.

She returns her fork and plate to the kitchens when she’s done eating. When she reaches for the exit door, though, someone beats her to it and opens it for her.

“Professor,” Dimitri says. “May I walk with you?”

Byleth doesn’t say no, which is as close to a yes as she’s able to give. Even now, she can’t find it in her to be annoyed at Dimitri’s presence. He may be chivalrous to a fault, but Byleth knows that he wears his heart on his sleeve. Like his fellow house leaders, there’s no sympathy on his face when he speaks.

“I am truly sorry about what happened to Jeralt,” he says as they watch side-by-side past the first-floor dormitories. “Losing your family in that way…it’s unforgivable.”

He seems to have a silent war in his head. Byleth isn’t sure whether he won or lost when he speaks again. “Whenever you want to strike, say the word and you’ll have my lance. I’ll do whatever you need.”

Unlike Claude and Dimitri, Dimitri is in her house, so she has to take his words seriously. She shakes her head. “I can’t bring students with me in good conscience on a revenge mission.” Especially not one where Byleth would be fine with death, as long as she took Kronya down with her.

“Then don’t bring me as a student. Bring me as an officer of the Faerghus army.” They’ve come to a stop outside Byleth’s room. She gets the uncomfortable sensation that Dimitri is seeing right through her. “I may be the only person here who understands what you’re going through, and if revenge is what you want, I will do everything in my power to make sure you have it.”

His voice drops to a growl, and Byleth realizes three things in short succession.

One: Dimitri wants revenge on behalf of the dead even more than she does.

Two: she’s been thinking clearly since their conversation began.

Three: the closer she steps to Dimitri, the warmer and more alive she feels.

So she steps forward, threads her fingers into Dimitri’s hair, and pulls his head down into a bruising kiss.

He lets out a surprised, choked noise but Byleth doesn’t let up on the pressure. Not yet, not until she’s sure she knows what he tastes like. Not until she adjusts to the sudden weightless feeling in her chest.

When she finally relaxes her hands, Dimitri pulls back an inch or two. “Professor?” he breathes. He’s looking her in the eyes, glancing down to her lips, back to her eyes. Maybe if Byleth had half the silver tongue some of her students have, she’d explain herself.

Byleth hears a noise nearby and realizes a fourth thing: they’re currently on a well-traveled path in the early evening. 

The right choice would be to step back, apologize, wish Dimitri a good night, lock herself in her room for another few weeks, and wait for him to forget she ever did that. She can’t let her terrible choices drag Dimitri down, too. And it’s what she has every intention of doing, until the thing she had felt at the Goddess Tower rears its head and speaks for her.

“Come in,” she says instead, and grabs Dimitri’s hand as she steps backward into her room. He follows, spellbound.

Byleth reaches past Dimitri to close the door behind them. It clicks shut, and Byleth holds herself back for just a moment, hand near Dimitri’s back, eyes tracing his face, neck, shoulders like he’s her prey. He doesn’t have long to wait for her attack. Her one hand closes the distance to splay across his back as she reaches up to hold onto the back of his neck with the other. She kisses him, close-mouthed at first, then increasingly urgently.

He’s intoxicating when he’s this close, nearly overwhelming her after so many days of feeling nothing. It feels so good just to _feel_ that it takes her a moment to notice Dimitri is still holding his hands at her side.

It’s her turn to pull back, though she isn’t willing to let go of him. His fists are clenched. “Dimitri? Is there something wrong?” 

“No! No,” he says. “It’s just- it’s just that…”

If this were a lecture, Byleth would wait for him to organize his thoughts, and they’d work through his idea or question together. But this isn’t their classroom, and in her bedroom she doesn’t have half the patience she can normally muster up for her officers-in-training, so she makes a few assumptions.

“I want this. I want you,” she admits, “more than anything. If you want me to stop, I will, and if you want to leave, you can. But you said you’d do whatever I need.”

Dimitri doesn’t react for a few heart-stopping seconds, and Byleth feels something sinking in her chest. Then he says in a hoarse voice, “Of course I’ll do it.”

Byleth kisses him again, more fervently now, driven almost to desperation by the way his voice already sounds overwhelmed. She feels his hands on her hips and sighs as she pulls him closer, closer, not close enough. She slips her tongue past his lips and feels him stiffen slightly before relaxing enough to let her in.

Dimitri’s fingers are pressing bruises into her side and he doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with his tongue himself. That’s okay with Byleth - Dimitri is offering her the control and feeling she’s been looking for.

She breaks the kiss to catch her breath. Even the inch or two feels unbearable, so she decides to at least get some use out of it. Byleth shrugs off her coat and unclasps her pendant to join it on the floor. She can sense Dimitri’s eyes on her now-bare neck. Curious, she presses her leg in between his, and his sudden jerk confirms that she definitely has his attention.

Byleth reaches up to his collar and busies herself with the buttons of his uniform. He jolts again like her touch is electric. “Dimitri,” she asks - is that _her_ voice that already sounds half-wrecked? - “have you done this before?”

“Kissed? Or…” The blush rapidly crawling up his neck to his face finishes the sentence for him. “No. No, I haven’t.”

Now _that’s_ interesting. Morally, the list of acceptable targets for her grief and rage just grew exponentially - hunting a stag, destroying a training dummy, seducing one of the full-fledged knights - but those choices are so boring and colorless compared to the prince in front of her right now, who is already wrapped around her finger when she’s barely even touched him yet.

She presses a kiss to the pulse point in his neck as she undoes the last button of his uniform shirt. Byleth rakes her eyes down his bare chest, admiring each set of muscles in turn. “Don’t worry,” she murmurs as she walks him backwards toward the bed. “I’ll teach you what you need to know.”

At some point, she assumes instinct will take over. Until Dimitri reaches that point, though, Byleth is happy to guide him. She pushes him gently onto the mattress and throws her leg over him, straddling his waist with her knees. He stares back up at her almost reverently, though the darkness of his eyes betrays his real feelings.

Byleth reaches behind her back and loosens the binding of her top enough to slip it up and over her head. She takes his hands and guides them to her freed breasts. He squeezes lightly, experimentally, and rubs his thumbs over her nipples. Byleth rewards him with a sigh as she grinds down on his hardening cock still trapped in his pants.

She bends down and kisses him deeply, groaning into his mouth as he figures out a pattern of circles that sends jolts of arousal through her core. He doesn’t let go even as Byleth climbs off him and nips at his ear. “Di-mmm- _itri_ ,” she whispers, and delights in the way he shivers. “Your boots need to come off.”

Byleth quickly pulls off her own boots and shorts, leaving her in only her tights. Dimitri quickly follows her lead, sitting up and kicking off his boots and undoing his belt before biting at the hollow above her collarbone.

“Quick learner,” Byleth praises, and tilts her head back to give him easier access. He’s lost his ability to control himself - there’s a pinprick of pain, and she knows the mark will last for a few days. He bites again and runs his tongue over the red spot, and she moans appreciatively.

“Pants too.” She runs her hand across his chest, enjoying the way she leaves goosebumps in her wake. Ever eager to please, Dimitri lays back and pulls them down past his hips and thighs, kicking them into a messy pile at the foot of the bed.

_Goddess_ , he looks good like this. Byleth is sure she’s about to explode as she drinks in the sight of him, letting her eyes linger on his newly-exposed calves and thighs. He trails a hand up her leg, and the threads of her tights are the only thing keeping her bound to her senses.

It’s a lot to take in. This is the crown prince of Faerghus in her bed, with only one more tented layer of fabric hiding his erection, looking at her like she hung the stars. He’s her student, he’s barely eighteen, he’s still a virgin-

Dimitri reaches the top of her thigh and applies just enough pressure between her legs, and any remaining doubt flies from Byleth’s mind.

She straddles him again and grinds down as she bites his jawline, his ear, his collarbone, whatever skin she can reach. Somehow he’s retained the presence of mind to bring his hands to her waist and pull her tights off.

The tights join Dimitri’s pants at the foot of the bed. Byleth is fully naked now and ghosting her fingers over the waistband of Dimitri’s underclothes. “Tell me to stop,” she says with her last bit of control. She owes him one last chance to run if he wants to.

“Even if I could I wouldn’t,” he says. His voice is so deep there’s no pitch to it, only gravel and darkness, and it’s enough to make Byleth lose her mind. She pulls the last bit of clothing off and sits back on his thighs to get a good look at him. He’s large, but not unbelievably so, and there’s a bend to his cock that looks incredibly promising.

Byleth reaches a hand between her legs and feels how drenched and open she is. She closes her eyes at her own touch and even bucks forward chasing the friction as she takes it away.

Sex has never been important to Byleth before. In the small villages across the continent, there’s not much else to do between jobs besides drink, play cards, and fuck the locals, sometimes all in the same night. She’s always considered it a decent, even fun, way to pass the time. But now, she feels like she’s burning up from the inside out, like if she can’t literally take up the same space as Dimitri’s, she’ll get as close as she can and hope it will satisfy her. It’s just one more thing that has turned on its head since she came to the academy.

She takes his cock in hand and gives it a few slow strokes. Dimitri’s hips buck upwards and he looks at her as his mouth falls open. The black of his pupils has devoured the blues of his eyes, and Byleth can only assume she matches. She crawls forward, lines him up with her entrance, and sinks down.

She’s not sure which one of them groans as Byleth takes him fully in. Dimitri throws an arm over his eyes to hide his face as he pants, but Byleth takes it and puts his hand on her waist instead. “I want to see you,” she says.

She raises her hips almost entirely off his cock before snapping back down, and _oh_ she’s glad she can see his whole face. His lips are moving in silent prayer and his head is thrown back as she rides.

“Professor,” he groans. “Profess _\- Byleth_!”

Byleth _loves_ hearing Dimitri say her name. She’s riding harder while he thrusts upwards, grinding herself down hard before lifting herself up, hoping that he’ll say it again. She can feel a familiar tightness starting to wind itself down from her core and up through her legs, and she’s so _close_ , but she’s not there yet. She bucks forward as she rises and falls, seeking more friction.

Dimitri’s breathing is getting heavier, which means she doesn’t have much longer. Inspiration strikes her, and she slides his free hand down his abdomen to put two fingers on either side of the base of his cock. This time when she leans forward, her clit brushes across his knuckles, and Byleth sees stars. She’s barely holding herself up anymore as she clings to his shoulders and chases the pressure, and it’s not long before she tumbles over the cliff of her climax.

She screamed, Byleth realizes when she comes back to herself. Dimitri’s half-thrusts are almost painful to her overstimulated sex, so she lifts herself off with shaking thighs and collapses next to him. She turns his head to hers and shoves her tongue down his throat possessively as she wraps a hand around his cock.

One, two, three pulls and it’s over. Dimitri groans deeply and she savors the sound as he spills into her hand.

They lay there for a few minutes, Byleth resting her head in the crook of Dimitri’s neck, half-drunk on the smell of his sweat. Once or twice, Dimitri opens his mouth to say something and closes it again without breaking the silence. Eventually, though, he speaks.

“Prof- By-” He stumbles over how to address her before giving up on that piece. He clears his throat. “That was- that was very nice. Enjoyable, even.”

_He’s so cute_. “That’s the best you could come up with?” Byleth says. There’s a slight smile on her lips, which seems to captivate him.

“I apologize, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say in this situation. You were incredible?” He traces his fingers over the angry red mark on her neck. “I’m sorry about the biting.”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“You were incredible.”

“Very good, Dimitri.” He looks both pleased and guilty at the praise. “Don’t worry about the mark. No one can see my neck anyway, so no one will know.”

Those words seem to spur Dimitri into action, and he sits up in a panic. “No one has to know? Professor, is it okay for me to be here? Will you be in trouble?”

“Only if Seteth finds out,” Byleth admits, sitting up also. “But that means you probably should go.”

She watches lazily as Dimitri assembles the various pieces of his uniform. Byleth’s not planning on going anywhere except maybe the baths tonight, so she’s content to lounge on her bed, pulling a blanket over herself to make up for the sudden lack of warmth.

He pulls himself back together surprisingly well, though his coat is a little disheveled and there’s no hiding the state of his hair. “Dimitri,” Byleth calls as he reaches for the door handle. He turns back to her as she stands. She’s still wrapped in the blanket, but she reaches out her free hand and brushes the worst of his sex hair back into place.

“Make sure you go right to your room to finish cleaning up,” she says as she sorts out the unruly hair above his ears. There’s no salvaging the bangs. Hopefully Dimitri can blame it on the training grounds if he’s caught on the stairs.

He nod and rests his hand on the doorknob again. “WIll we see you in class tomorrow, Professor?” he asks. It sounds like a rehearsal of how he’ll have to sound once he leaves this room. Like the concerned student and future king he is, not whatever he just was.

_Tomorrow_ is an interesting thought for Byleth. She realizes all at once that she hadn’t been thinking about revenge, or Kronya, or anything that wasn’t Dimitri. Even now that she’s aware of it, it’s like the edge has been taken off. Like maybe, just maybe, she can live instead of just exist.

“You will,” she says, and means it.

Dimitri opens the door and glances both ways before slipping out into the night.

The fog is still there if Byleth dwells on it. It could still devour her whole. She still wants revenge with every ounce of her being. But enough has been driven back by Dimitri’s light that she can keep going. Enough is gone that she doesn’t have to fear the cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not pictured: Sylvain/Dimitri B+ support where Sylvain presents Dimitri with a "congrats on the sex" cake  
> (he tried to get Felix and Ingrid to help him bake it)  
> (they did not help him)  
> (it does not taste very good)  
> (Dimitri does not realize this)
> 
> recommended soundtrack: “want you in my room” by carly rae jepsen
> 
> thank you for reading!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for this chapter: light elements of bondage (someone's wrists get pinned down), teacher-student sex

**2 - Rage**

Byleth emerges from her self-imposed exile the next day, like promised. By some miracle, she’s managed to avoid Seteth’s attention, so she has to assume Dimitri made it back to his room unnoticed the night before. She also mentally thanks whoever drew up the room assignments for making sure she only shared a wall with the one person who would never sell out Dimitri.

That doesn’t stop her from showering Dedue with gifts at every opportunity over the next month. It’s not even out of character for her to overwhelm her student of the week with flowers and owl feathers. She works very hard to make sure nothing she does when she restarts her life is out of character. Keeping up appearances means teaching and tutoring during the week and battling bandits on the weekend. 

After all, Byleth is not the sort of person that gives into emotion or impulse. And she’s definitely not the sort of teacher who, if she  _ were _ emotionally compromised, would fuck her students. Obviously.

That’s what she keeps repeating to herself every time she steps to the front of the Blue Lions classroom. Most of the time, she’s able to ignore Sothis’ teasing by focusing wholly on her battalion lecture or footwork tutoring. And if she accidentally sends Felix off to the stables instead of Ingrid because she was lost in thought and just happened to be looking in Dimitri’s general direction...well, she did just lose her father. It’s only natural she wouldn’t be back to full capacity just yet.

Dimitri, for his part, seems the same as always. This surprises her, considering how much of an open book he usually is. His code of chivalry must extend to the bedroom.

They keep up this facade that nothing has happened between them. Even when Byleth is robbed of her revenge, even when she dies and resurrects herself - if Dimitri follows her along like a lost puppy after that, it’s because he’s a dedicated house leader who’s devoted to his professor. He's not the only Lion refusing to let her out of their sight, even if he is the least subtle about it.

Byleth has nearly convinced herself that it really never will happen again. It was just a moment of weakness from both of them. Dimitri will graduate in just a few weeks and claim his throne, and Byleth will keep teaching here, or form her own band of mercenaries, or maybe become a merchant and sell fish bait for all she knows. None of which would concern the king of Faerghus.

But then Edelgard is unmasked and Dimitri is undone.

-

_ This must be what Felix meant by “boar,”  _ Byleth thinks. Dimitri is stabbing into a training dummy over and over until it’s barely even a pile of straw. He’s reduced two training lances to splinters already and is well on his way through an iron one, stopping only when his lungs force him to gasp for breath. 

She’s helping Annette with the last of her calculations for her latest hex when Byleth accidentally catches Dimitri’s eye. He’s breathing hard from his assault on the dummy, and the intensity of his stare sparks something electric in her chest.

He holds his gaze for a few seconds. Byleth gets the uncomfortable feeling she’s being assessed the same way she assesses a weapons rack. “Professor,” he finally says, “I’m having some trouble with my angle of attack. Maybe you can help me.”

She excuses herself from where she’s sitting with Annette and crosses the training grounds to Dimitri’s side. “What part are you having trouble with?”

“My attacks aren’t as powerful as I want them to be. It can’t be a strength problem, so it must be my form.”

“Show me.”

He thrusts his lance forward and she spots the problem immediately. “You’re moving your elbow out and away from your core immediately before you connect. It’s freezing up your right side so the only force you’re using is from your non-dominant hand.” Which is a terrifying thought, considering the state of today’s training equipment. She rests her hand on his elbow. “Do it again. I’ll hold you steady.”

He stabs forward again, and Byleth’s hand is enough to keep his arm on the correct arc. The last bit of the target’s structure collapses into a pile of sawdust before their eyes. “Perfect,” Byleth praises.

Dimitri doesn’t thank her. He stares past the dummy remnants like he’s saying something with his eyes to someone who isn’t there. “Professor,” he says again, keeping his voice low. “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you later. Will you come to my room tonight?”

Byleth’s hand stiffens imperceptibly on his arm. “About preparations for the upcoming invasion?”

“No.”

“About Edelgard?”

Dimitri barks out something resembling a laugh. “No. No, I want one night where I don’t have to think about that woman.”

Which means it’s exactly the situation she’s been trying to ignore for months. She wouldn’t ask anyway with the rest of the students in earshot, but his expression tells her all she needs to know. “I will stop by after dinner then.”

-

Byleth hadn’t known exactly what to expect when she knocked on Dimitri’s door that evening, but it certainly wasn’t Dimitri handing her a cup of tea after she enters the room and takes a seat at his desk. She takes a sip - the chamomile is oversteeped and the water is too cold.

Dimitri isn’t drinking anything while he paces the same three steps back and forth on his rug. When Byleth asks him why he’s not drinking, he looks a little sheepish. “That’s the only cup I have. I, ah...the rest are broken.”

She takes one more polite sip before abandoning the cup on the desk. “What did you want to discuss?”

“As if you don’t know.”

“Tell me anyway.” The last thing she wants is to have read this situation all wrong, and ruin all her hard work over the past months.

Dimitri sits on the edge of his bed and rests his head in his hands. “The last time we were together,” he says, looking determinedly at his feet, “something about you changed. You hadn’t left your room in days - I was honestly worried I’d never see you again. But then the next day you were back in class, almost good as new.”

He lifts his head. Byleth is listening closely, which seems to give him the strength to continue. He sits up a little straighter. “Ever since last month, I can’t think. I can barely eat, and I can’t sleep. Whenever I close my eyes, all I see is...the only thing I want is that woman’s head on a pike, and that’s kinder than anything she deserves.”

Byleth nods. She knows this feeling so well. It burned her from the inside out when her father died, and it’s what’s simmering even now towards Edelgard.

“Despite what Felix may say, I don’t enjoy this feeling. I want nothing more than to go back to the way things were, but the choice was made for me.” Dimitri glances at a spot a few feet to Byleth’s right. “Still, if there’s any chance of recovery, I feel it’s in your hands.”

Byleth says nothing.

“Forgive me for being so forward,” he tells Byleth’s shoes, “but if you were to spend the night here, it could be the miracle I’ve been praying for. Of course, if you don’t want to-”

“Dimitri,” she interrupts. “You could have just said you wanted to sleep with me again.”

That wasn’t what he expected to hear, judging by the way he abruptly raises his gaze. “Are you certain?”

“Taking action is what truly made me feel better,” she says. “But you did help me take my mind off things. It’s only fair that I return the favor.”

“I’m afraid that once I start I won’t be able to stop.”

“I’m yours for the taking.”

A sound like a growl escapes Dimitri’s throat at that statement. He stands and crosses the floor in one stride and tilts Byleth’s chin up with his hand. “Promise me you won’t take back those words,” he says, hovering just inches above her.

She hopes her poker face doesn’t betray exactly what this position is already doing to her. Byleth swallows. “It’s a promise,” she says, and lets Dimitri take whatever she’ll give.

His kiss isn’t a good one, objectively speaking - it’s open-mouthed and raw, more teeth than lips - but Byleth closes her eyes as she’s wrapped up in it anyway. This isn’t some fairy tale prince kissing her, it’s Dimitri, with all the rough edges he’s made of.

She parts her lips to allow him to deepen the kiss and he accepts her invitation, licking into her mouth, and finds herself gasping for breath when Dimitri lifts her off the chair. Something must be showing on her face because he half-laughs as she holds onto the back of his neck. “You said I could do what I wanted.”

He turns and steps toward the bed, all but throwing her onto the mattress. He’s on her again without pause, briefly kissing her lips before trailing downward to her jawline and the top of her neck. She starts to reach for her pendant clasp but Dimitri beats her to it, undoing it and setting it on his side table with something like gentleness before biting into her exposed neck. Byleth gasps and arches her back involuntarily at the sharp pain.

He’s moving quickly, kissing and biting red marks into her collarbone as he works at her top. He outright tears the last bit of it open and throws it aside. Somewhere in the back of her mind Byleth notes that getting it repaired will be a priority with war on the horizon, but all her conscious and unconscious thought is preoccupied by the ravenous look in Dimitri’s eyes.

“ _ Goddess _ , Professor,” he growls as he drinks in her flushed expression. “If you could see yourself now.”

Was it always so hard to speak clearly? To push aside her moans for even a moment? “Call me Byleth during this.”

“I thought this was about what I wanted,  _ Professor _ ,” he whispers into her ear, and she feels her shiver shoot down through her core to between her legs.

So far Dimitri has only taken what Byleth has let him have, but she’s rapidly losing her self-control. Especially when he lowers his head to her chest and takes a nipple between his teeth. She cries out louder than she meant to, which Dimitri correctly hears as a plea to  _ don’t stop _ . Every pinprick of pain rockets down her as pleasure, and she can feel a familiar tightness in the base of her core start to coil itself.

She doesn’t realize she’s grinding against Dimitri’s thigh until he pulls it away and she outright whines at the loss. “Dimitri, please,” she whispers.

He pulls his mouth away from her breast with a pop, replacing it with a thumb to gently circle her nipple. When she reaches for the top buttons of his coat to even the field, though, he pulls back.

“What I want more than anything is for you to just lay back. Don’t lift a finger, Professor. Let me do this.” It’s that weird gentleness again, Byleth notes, as he unbuttons and shrugs off his layers to leave them in equal states of undress.

She took what she wanted last time so it’s only fair. But his bare chest looks so tempting and she’s so impatient, so she props herself up on her elbows to steal a kiss. Dimitri indulges her for a moment before pushing her back down by her shoulder and holding her there, still kissing her deeply. When he pulls back and looks her in the eye, she can barely breathe.

“How long are you going to keep me waiting?” Byleth asks. She lowers her gaze to the bulge in his trousers. “It doesn’t look like you can wait much longer either.”

The  _ either _ doesn’t escape Dimitri’s notice. He trails his hand down her chest, tracing the center of her ribcage and over her abs before pausing at the top of her shorts. She lifts her hips obligingly and he pulls them down, leaving her bare. Again, though, as she goes to mimic him, he maneuvers himself out of her grasp.

“Don’t lift a finger,” he echoes, taking her wrists in hand and pinning them both to the bed above her head.

There’s danger in this position. It’s not the restraint itself that’s the problem - for one, it’s destroying her in the best way, and for another, she has no doubts that she could fight back if she needed to. No, it’s dangerous exactly  _ because _ she’s into it. Letting him keep her pinned there would topple the last of the delicate balance Byleth has created for herself. The choice is hers. Take her hands back and throw Dimitri to his wolves, or leave them there and step backwards off the cliff with him.

She shudders as Dimitri kisses the side of her neck and ghosts his hand between her legs, and she does not pull her hands free.

“Don’t tease me, Dimitri,” she gasps as he traces a finger between her lower lips and feels just how wet she is.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says. It’s amazing to Byleth how he can still keep his head given how blown out his pupils are, how kiss-swollen his lips are.

She’s squirming under his grip, chasing any sort of relief. “You-” she groans as he brushes past her clit. “You won’t, Dimitri, Dimitri, please.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you beg before.” He pulls his free hand away from her to open the top of his pants and sighs in relief as his erection springs forth. “I like it.” He gives his cock a few strokes and closes his eyes in relief. Byleth feels another flood of wetness as she looks at him above her.

He’s positioned at her entrance, so close and still so far, and the wait is killing her. She groans in frustration, which was apparently what Dimitri was waiting for. “Say it again.”

“Please,” Byleth says voicelessly. The word transforms into a deep moan from the base of her throat as he pushes into her. It’s like she’s being split open and reformed, her entire world narrowed to just the point where they join. She arches her back to take him all the way in.

She could spend the rest of her life like this, relishing the way the fullness feels so  _ right _ , but then Dimitri starts moving and she just about loses her mind. She’s already so close to the edge that she can feel the tight heat threatening to devour her, and every pull backwards and snap back in only intensifies the feeling. Byleth desperately tries to reach for his back to find some kind of anchor, but his unrelenting grip on her wrists reminds her that she’s at his mercy.

But  _ goddess _ she needs more. She takes back whatever control she can by wrapping her legs around his waist to deepen the angle of his thrust. She shifts slightly again and  _ oh fuck there _ . She’s dimly aware that she of all people is  _ babbling _ , something that started as Dimitri’s name but has devolved into “fuck”s and “oh goddess”es.

Dimitri doesn’t let up, and every thrust is brushing along her g-spot, and it’s sending all her senses into overdrive until finally, with a loud cry, she tips over the edge.

She comes back to herself quickly. She can still feel the aftershocks of her orgasm rippling through her, and Dimitri’s rhythm is growing more frantic and uneven. It’s almost painful to her overstimulated sex. “Dimitri,” she stammers out, voice raw, “come.”

She lifts her head enough for her lips to meet his and he groans into the kiss, hips stuttering as he rides out his own climax. He pulls out after a moment of stillness, releasing Byleth’s wrists as he collapses next to her.

“Feeling better?” she asks once his heavy breathing slows to a normal pace.

Byleth runs her fingers through his hair as he speaks. “Physically, yes, but I still want revenge, and now it feels like all I’m doing is wasting my time with you. Not that this was a waste!” he hastily adds. “But they’ll see it as time I could have spent training or on the road to intercept her on her way here."

“‘They?’ The army?”

Dimitri ignores the question. “Was this how you felt? How in the world did you-I apologize, this must be terrible bedroom conversation. I’m not very experienced at this.”

“Compared to some of the mercenaries I’ve met you’re an orator.” Byleth presses a kiss to the closest part of Dimitri, which turns out to be his temple. “To answer your question, yes, it’s how I felt. It’s how I feel now, though Edelgard has only truly wronged me once, so I can only imagine how you’re feeling.”

“I can’t tell if you’re just trying to placate me or if you really mean what you’re saying. To be honest, Professor, either way is fine as long as you’re with me.”

“I have never lied to you, Dimitri, and certainly not to make you feel better. What you want, I want. Use me as you need.”

-

Defense preparations go on for the next few weeks. Byleth and Dimitri stand with Seteth at the head of every war council, Byleth helps her students master whatever skills and spells they can as quickly as they can, and Dimitri somehow spends more time on the training grounds than even Felix.

And when they’re not kept busy by other responsibilities, Byleth and Dimitri feed off each other’s all-consuming need for revenge on the Empire. Dimitri pulls Byleth away from the kitchens in the middle of dinner preparation and they steal half an hour to themselves in one of the pantries. Byleth shoves a chair under the door handle of the council room while Dimitri is reviewing the same planning map for the umpteenth time.

They’ve abandoned any semblance of hiding whatever kind of relationship this is. Not many people comment directly to them about it, but it’s obvious they all have an opinion. Sylvain is one of the few to speak up, telling them (“Trust me, I know how this sounds coming from me.”) that they might want to take a night off and get some sleep.

But Dimitri would spend all his time withdrawing from everyone without her, and Byleth doesn’t even feel like a living person when he’s not around. So they spiral further into each other and out of control with every passing day, until Byleth makes her fatal misstep and falls, falls, falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, starting this fic: gosh, these two sure do have a lot of sexual tension, I bet I could write a few sex scenes without getting weighed down too much with Plot and Feelings  
> me now: ah shit
> 
> welcome sylvain to the "one line of dialogue" club! 
> 
> recommended soundtrack: "all the good girls go to hell" by billie eilish


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No specific warnings for this chapter, other than "post-timeskip Dimitri"

**2.5 - Abandonment**

Byleth had last seen Dimitri fighting off the Empire all but single-handedly. Claude had been by his side taking care of the soldiers that slipped past the reach of his lance, and Byleth had felt safe enough leaving them in each other’s hands to run to the next front.

Then she’d been shoved off a cliff, which was unbelievable enough on its own, and woken up in front of this farmer who’s telling her that Garreg Mach fell five years ago? That there’s no one there but thieves and maybe a vengeful ghost if you’re unlucky? That can’t be right - she doesn’t feel any thinner, weaker, or older. She can’t have been gone that long.

She must have hit her head on her way down. Maybe he’s actually saying five days, or five weeks. A human could survive that long without food or water, right? Whatever amount of time it is, though, her students must be worried sick, so she turns without another word to make her way up the hills to the monastery.

The amount of death and decay as she slips into the building is the first thing to make her think the farmer was maybe telling the truth about the years and the ghosts. She’s no stranger to fighting, and a battle the size of one she’s just been in would mean bodies left unburied for maybe a few days while both sides looked the other way and collected their dead. The corpses she’s making her way past have been there too long to be from a battle a few weeks ago, and too short to be from years ago.

It’s instinct, or maybe her own ghost of Sothis, that tells her to climb the goddess tower. The Dimitri she meets there - half-blinded, half-dead, half-insane - is what finally convinces her that yes, she really did vanish for a half-decade.

She reaches her hand to Dimitri, and he doesn’t even turn away as he ignores it.

The ache in her chest as Dimitri pulls himself up to stalk down the steps tells her two things. One, that she would do anything to bring back the Dimitri she knew hours - no, years - ago. And two, that maybe the ghost of her feelings from years ago still haunted this tower too.

-

“What do you want?”

Byleth closes the cathedral door behind her as she enters. It’s largely a symbolic gesture when half of the western wall is rubble, but it would feel wrong to her to leave the door open late at night. “Can’t I take a walk?”

“Garreg Mach is large. You could walk anywhere else.”

“Maybe I came here to pray, then.”

Dimitri scoffs. “I have never seen you pray. Not before you left us, and not since you returned. Don’t lie to me.”

“I did say maybe.” Byleth takes a seat in the frontmost pew, directly behind Dimitri. Still, she did promise years ago that she wouldn’t lie to him. “I’m here to make sure you’re okay.”

Dimitri hasn’t so much as turned his head since she entered. “You should concern yourself with the living.”

“Like it or not, you are also alive. We need you if we have any chance of marching on Enbarr, and any chance of reunifying Faerghus once Cornelia is removed from the throne.”

He does not respond. Byleth busies herself with the supply inventory she brought along, and is halfway through working out how they can stretch a few thousand gold into hiring enough mercenaries to fill the gaps in their battalions when Dimitri breaks the silence.

“Is that all I am?”

It was so quiet she’s not sure she heard correctly. She looks up from her calculations and makes a sound to indicate she’s listening. Dimitri finally turns to face her, and Byleth holds herself back from commenting on the bags under his visible eye and the thinness of his cheeks.

“Is that all I am? Is it not enough that the dead make their demands of me? Now you too will only see me as a means to an end?”

She will not break. “That’s all any of us are,” she responds, continuing to look him in the eye. “This is war, Dimitri, and you’re the crown prince. You should understand that more than anyone.”

“That’s not what I used to be. The boy you abandoned years ago...was he just a tool for you too?”

_ She will not break _ . Dimitri takes a few steps forward as Byleth stays silent, stopping just out of arm’s reach. “Was he?  _ Professor? _ ”

“Of course not.”

“If not, then did you-” He interrupts himself. “It hardly matters. That boy is dead, but he still remembers what you were.”

A few possible responses flit through Byleth’s mind, but she can’t even begin to speak before Dimitri closes the distance. It’s less a kiss and more a fight, an animal trying to reclaim its territory. At best, it’s a painful memory, and at worst, it’s the beast’s attempt to destroy any kindness remaining in either of their hearts.

_ She will not break she will not break she will not break _ . She wants nothing more than to give in, pretend that the man in front of her is the same Dimitri she taught. It would be so easy to yield. So easy to admit that there wasn’t even a fight to start with, so easy to open up and let him in as he is. So easy to touch and be touched, to let him take her on this pew or on the altar or under the saints’ statues.

But this is war, and she’s a means to an end too. The last few weeks she could remember, as much as she had enjoyed them, had been the worst kind of mistake. This is her do-over now - if Byleth falls off the cliff again, the Kingdom’s fight ends. If Dimitri can’t lead the royal army, that responsibility falls to her.

If she can’t win back the real Dimitri, she won’t accept this consolation prize.

She pulls back and stands up in one movement. “Don’t you dare,” Byleth says, stepping backwards slowly. “If that boy is dead, you have no right to replace him.”

There’s a mix of anger, lust, and guilt written on his face that Byleth doesn’t have the strength to unpack. “If that boy is dead,” she continues, “then you’re a beast wearing his skin. I love all my students, and I swear by the goddess that none of you will fall in this war. But only Dimitri may touch me like that, and you said it yourself, he’s dead. ”

She reaches past him to grab the ledger. “I have work to do.” Byleth settles herself on a pew on the right side instead and tries to hide her heavy breathing.

It wasn’t fair, what she said to him. To heap more expectations on his shoulders when she should be trying to take them from him, as his friend and former teacher. But goddess, Byleth is no saint. She’s just a mercenary in over her head, and if the one living person she’d ever opened up to has decided he’d rather please his ghosts than her, then she’s allowed to be angry.

Dimitri does not speak to her again that night. He continues his vigil over the rubble of the ceiling late into the night, and long after she’s finished her work for the night Byleth watches his back. She wants to apologize, but she doesn’t know what would be worse, a rejection or a hollow acceptance.

At some point she must have nodded off. When the sunlight streaming through the open ceiling wakes her, she’s lying down on the pew, with a blue cloak draped over her. Dimitri is nowhere to be seen.

**3 - Guilt**

The Kingdom army limps through the next few months. Dedue’s return is a burst of light that keeps them fighting, but even he isn’t enough to guide Dimitri back to the land of the living. Still, they struggle on with Gautier funds and Fraldarius men - the only territories of the Kingdom that have anything left to give.

They go to Gronder Field ready to fight the Empire, and find themselves cutting through the Alliance too. For her part, Byleth will only strike her students with the flat of her sword unless they leave her no choice. It’s a bad plan tactically, and maybe even treasonous when their commander wants them to kill everyone in their path, but she can’t convince herself that any of the Deer deserve to die for Dimitri’s paranoia.

She takes an arrow in the shoulder from Failnaught at one point, but when she refuses to counterattack, Claude points his bow instead towards a red-uniformed mage who was readying a sigil behind her. Byleth soon loses sight of him entirely in the chaos, and prays that he’ll make it out in one piece.

The whole field is filled with smoke and screams. She doesn’t even realize the fighting is over and done until she all but crashes into Felix when Ingrid lands her pegasus in front of them.

“It’s your father,” she says, and Felix breaks into a run with Byleth close behind.

Rodrigue lies still in Dimitri’s arms - he could almost be mistaken for sleeping if it weren’t for the knife in his heart. The girl who had joined up with their army just a few weeks ago is running away as fast as she can, and Felix takes off after her in single-minded pursuit.

Byleth reaches for her last Divine Pulse instinctively, pushing the pieces around on the battlemap in her mind. If she maneuvers Felix close enough to intervene, that leaves Annette completely exposed; if she goes back even further to put Mercedes in easy Physic range, she won’t be there to patch up Sylvain. There’s only one formation she can find that might stand a chance of working, but she’d have to turn back the hands of time to almost the very beginning of the battle to put everyone in the right spots, and that means getting through the whole thing without a safety net. 

In the unnatural stillness, Byleth takes a moment to assess Dimitri’s expression. There’s pain in his visible eye, of course, but also something like regret, something like love, something like clarity shining through. It’s an expression that’s not half-mad - it’s an expression that the Dimitri of five years ago might have worn.

One lord’s life against the rest of the Kingdom’s. It’s not even a question. Byleth exhales and lets time continue undisturbed.

Dedue helps Dimitri to his feet. In the distance, the girl falls to Felix’s blade. Byleth is wordless, but for the first time in a while, she can feel something like hope.

-

They have a victory feast when they return to the monastery. The food itself isn’t very different from their usual meals, but Dimitri has been persuaded to join them, which makes for a bigger morale boost than even Ashe’s cooking. He doesn’t speak or eat much, but he does speak and eat, and there’s even a ghost of a smile when Ingrid tells Sylvain off for staring too openly at one of the merchants.

Despite the pouring rain dampening the mood, Byleth considers the evening as close to a success as it could be, which is why she’s surprised to see Annette waiting nervously outside her room.

“Professor!” she blurts out once she spots Byleth. “I need to talk to you. It’s about Dimitri.”

Byleth pauses at the base of the steps and tilts her head, motioning her to continue.

“See, I was watching him at dinner, and it’s like he wasn’t all there.” 

“Did you expect him to be better all at once?”

“No, and it wouldn’t have been weird if he’d spaced out or started talking to ghosts again or anything like that.” Annette fidgets with a lock of hair, twirling it around her finger. “But whenever someone wasn’t talking to him, he was staring at the wall in a really focused way, and something about it just looked so familiar. It’d been bothering me all night, and when I figured it out just now I ran right here. Professor, it’s the same look my father had the night before he left.”

Byleth’s blood runs cold. She barely hears Annette ask, “Have you seen him since dinner?”

“I haven’t.” She has to hope her panic isn’t showing on her face. “Have you?”

“I haven’t either. I ran into Mercie on the way here and she said she’d keep an eye on the cathedral. I’m about to go keep watch outside his room. Can you check the stables?”

Byleth turns on her heel and all but sprints to the monastery stables. She hears Annette’s footsteps disappearing behind her and prays that they’re not too late.

The goddess must still have a soft spot for her, because Byleth steps in front of an open stall door just as Dimitri is leading a horse out.

“What are you doing?”

“Step aside,” he commands.

She does not. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“It’s none of your concern.”

“If it’s anyone’s concern it’s mine. Do you think you’re going to Enbarr?” When Dimitri is silent, she continues. “We have very few war horses and even fewer princes, and you want to take both on a suicide mission.”

“It has to be this way. Step aside.”

She steps closer instead, out of the rain and under the stall’s roof. His hands clench around the horse’s reins, but he doesn’t move. “It doesn’t, Dimitri. You can’t leave when you’ve just come back to us.”

“You couldn’t possibly understand. It’s my responsibility to the dead. When I survived nine years, I inherited their will.”

Byleth has to laugh, a guttural sound that could be mistaken for a sob. “Their will is for you to die alone halfway across the Empire?”

“What else can I do!?” The horse starts to rear back at Dimitri’s explosion, and he reaches out a hand to calm it. He pets its muzzle as he repeats, more quietly, “What else can I do?”

“Follow your own will.”

It’s Dimitri’s turn to laugh. “There’s the professor I know, always saying impossible things and making them sound real. Even if I could say no to them, how can I stay here when I can’t face the living? I can never repay what I owe Dedue, or Felix, or even you.” Dimitri turns from the horse and fully faces Byleth. “But you always have the answers, Professor, so tell me. What should I do? How can I follow my own will?”

Byleth reaches out her own hand and presses it to Dimitri’s cheek. He leans into the touch and reaches up to take it. “Your hand is so warm,” he breathes. “Has it always been?”

She stretches upwards and presses a single chaste kiss to his lips. The anger and fear drains from him all at once, and he nearly collapses onto her as the adrenaline falls away. Byleth lowers her hand from his face and grasps his instead. “Let’s go inside.”

The rain is beginning to ease up as they make their way to the bedrooms on the second floor. Annette nearly cries when she sees Dimitri safe and sound and Byleth relieves her of her post. She promises to make a plate of Byleth’s favorite sweets tomorrow, and Byleth makes her also promise that Mercedes will help her.

Dimitri is easy enough to maneuver into his room now that all the fight has gone out of him. He lets Byleth help him out of his cloak but stops her from bending to take off his boots. Otherwise he doesn’t bother to remove any other clothing before collapsing into his bed. Byleth takes a seat beside him, sitting up against the headboard.

He clings to her lap and keeps his face buried in her side as Byleth idly cards her fingers through his hair. The locks are greasy and uncombed, but she’s able to undo the worst of the knots as Dimitri’s breathing grows deeper and slower.

Byleth slips herself loose of his grip, and Dimitri stirs slightly. “Don’t leave,” he mumbles.

“I won’t.” She loosens the bindings of her top, not enough to remove it entirely but enough to give herself some breathing room, and kicks off her boots. “I couldn’t leave you, Dimitri.”

She’s not sure if Dimitri hears her, or if she even meant to say it at all.

“I was just getting more comfortable,” she explains as she returns to the bed and picks up where she left off on his hair.

After a while, Dimitri speaks. “When the war is over, you’re going to lead the Church, aren’t you?”

Byleth hums thoughtfully. “I suppose so. Seteth wants me to, at least. It’s either that or back to the mercenary life, and I think even I’ll need a break from fighting for a while.”

She feels him smile at that. Another few minutes pass in silence before he continues. “As the future archbishop, could you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“Do you know about confession?”

The term vaguely rings a bell - Manuela may have mentioned it once? - but Byleth shakes her head. Dimitri can’t see her, but he knows her well enough to know her answer anyway.

“It’s one of the Church’s doctrines. It’s largely fallen out of favor in Lady Rhea’s time, but it’s the idea that if you name your sins and repent for them, the goddess is merciful.”

She remembers, vividly, all the time Rhea passed judgement just in the few months she knew her. Her students’ families. Fellow clergy members. Common bandits who accepted the wrong person’s gold. She can’t imagine her forgiving anyone.

“What do you want me to do?”

He holds more tightly to her. “Tell me what I need to do to be forgiven.”

She banishes Rhea from her mind and thinks instead of Flayn, who rescued their entire class from an ambush with one spell and slept for two weeks after. Of Seteth, who thinks he hasn’t been followed whenever he pulls Felix or Ingrid aside to give them advice. And of Sothis, who always called her a foolish child before giving her the world.

Byleth stills her hand in Dimitri’s hair. “Then tell me what you’ve done.”

It doesn’t come out all at once. Dimitri begins with a shuddering breath and only speaks when he can bear it. Some are easy enough for her to answer.

(“I stole the only axe from a family’s barn so I could survive, and I didn’t care if that meant they couldn’t.”)

Others are more difficult.

(“I never searched for Dedue.”)

And others are impossible.

(“I let father and son die for me.”)

Byleth is quiet for a while when he reaches the end of his list. She doesn’t have any experience with either side of a confessional - though she’s fairly sure “in bed with your former lover” isn’t the usual time or place - and she doesn’t have the slightest clue what she should say with Dimitri’s fragile trust is on the line.

“Tell me what I should do, Professor.”

The right answer comes through what must be divine intervention. “Stay.”

“...What?”

“Stay here with us. Tell the rest of the Lions the pieces they should know. Apologize if you need to, even if they don’t forgive you. Actually fight with us instead of at the same time as us. And after we win, stay with us, Dimitri.”

He must have heard the unspoken  _ stay with me _ from the way he presses his face to her side. “I’m still not sure I have a future to promise,” he says in a muffled, shaking voice. “But I’ll promise whatever I do have to you.”

The rain has long since stopped, and the moonlight is shining softly in through his window, filtering the room into blurred edges and long shadows. In the otherworldly glow, Byleth has to wonder if the two of them didn’t just make vows that are bigger than either of them.

If they ever see Rhea again, she’ll ask her, Byleth decides. For tonight she slides down on the bed to lay next to Dimitri. He barely loosens his grip on her to let her move, and she falls asleep quickly and easily in his arms. She dreams of a young girl demanding to know if all humans were so terrible at seeing what was right in front of their faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for literally interpreting the phrase “sleeping together,” but in my defense I used that phrasing on purpose.
> 
> there’s A Lot! that I don’t like about post-gronder field (Where is Felix? Why not even _try_ a Divine Pulse for Rodrigue? Why set up Gilbert as a “what might have been” for Dimitri’s departure and then do nothing with that narrative softball?) which means I wrote 3.5k of plot in what started life as “porn with feelings” to try and fix it. absolutelydisgusting.jpg.
> 
> no feral Dimitri sex because in canon-compliant world Byleth and Dimitri can’t just run off and be horny and leave Seteth to lead the army by himself, because that’s called Silver Snow and I haven’t played that route yet. I promise the remaining two chapters do have sex in them.
> 
> recommended soundtrack: “bedroom hymns” by florence and the machine
> 
> as always, thank you for reading!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: alcohol use

**4 - Happiness**

Byleth and Dimitri fall back into each other once Dimitri decides to stay. They don’t pick up exactly where they left off - for one, neither has the all-consuming drive for revenge that consumed them during their last days at the academy - but they both know the steps of their dance better now. As Dimitri takes his place at the head of the army, they’re able to share the load of commanding, and in their personal life they could be mistaken for courting instead.

They’ve learned a little about discretion from their disastrous few weeks, but the rest of the Lions notice all the same. There’s a smile in Ashe’s eyes whenever their hands linger a second too long over a passed salt shaker or document, and Annette and Mercedes have picked up the worst habit of raising their eyebrows and winking at each other whenever Byleth and Dimitri leave the war councils at the same time.

They’re better at stealing moments with each other, too. Sometimes it’s just a squeeze of each other’s hands under the table when Dimitri is about to lose his temper or dissociate entirely. Other times there’s just enough downtime to get up to trouble. One of Byleth’s favorite activities has become shoving maps aside haphazardly and getting bent over a table, but she’s also a fan of pushing Dimitri against a long-ignored bookshelf in the back of the library and leaving him breathless.

She’s not quite sure why they’re bothering to keep up the pretense of sleeping in separate rooms. Everyone important knows that they can both be found in Byleth’s room in the mornings. This is most obvious on the mornings when they oversleep and the mornings when they definitely do not.

There’s one memorable morning when they’re interrupted by an impatient knock on the door. “Your Highness, Professor, we’re waiting for you,” Ingrid’s voice says.

Byleth curses and throws her head back on her pillow. “Give us five minutes.”

“Professor.”

“We should go,” Dimitri says, lifting his head from between Byleth’s legs.

She reluctantly accepts that the battle is lost. Dimitri cleans his face with the end of Byleth’s blanket while she throws on her tights and shorts, and a few short moments later they’re opening the door to greet an icy Ingrid.

The three of them walk in an uncomfortable silence until Ingrid cracks. “After all the times I’ve lectured Sylvain about this. After all the times you’ve watched me lecture him, after all the times you’ve  _ helped _ me lecture him, you’re still going to be like this?”

“If I may, it is the same woman every time…?”

Ingrid whirls around and jabs her index finger at the two of them. She seems to just barely hold herself back when she remembers that they do in fact have somewhere they need to be. “Don’t think you’re off the hook here. Either of you.” She spins back on her heel and leads them up the stairs and around the corner to their meeting room.

Sylvain takes one look at Ingrid’s face and gives the two of them a thumbs up. Felix looks like he’s going to stab everyone in the room and then himself. Everyone else in the room pointedly does not comment either way.

-

They still have a war to win, and with Dimitri truly back at the helm, the winds blow in their favor. Wherever the Kingdom army marches, they paint the continent blue, and soon the Lion banner flies above Arianrhod, Fhirdiad, even Derdriu. Their nights in inns and around campfires in the Kingdom and former Alliance are almost happy as they toast to life.

Their camps always grow more sober whenever they cross the Great Bridge into the Empire, though. Byleth sleeps in her own tent instead of Dimitri’s, clutching her sword instead of his hand.

Fort Merceus falls. It’s the last obstacle between them and Enbarr, the last true battle to stand in their path to Edelgard. If it were the old Dimitri here, Byleth has no doubt that he’d keep marching straight there until he dropped dead of exhaustion. He’s still as stubborn as ever now, though - it takes Byleth, Dedue, and Ingrid to talk him down from immediately returning to the monastery after hearing the latest news from Faerghus.

“Your Highness, Margrave Gautier is currently  _ sending _ troops. They have not arrived yet.”

“If you really need me to, I can fly ahead with my company, but there’s no way all our foot soldiers can mobilize so quickly.”

“We should celebrate.”

The three of them turn to Byleth at that suggestion. “You can’t be suggesting we take a break when there’s still so much to do,” Dimitri says.

“I am. There’s no point in running back just to wait at Garreg Mach. Once we’ve cleaned up from the battle, we should have a feast. An army marches on its stomach.”

As if on cue, Ingrid’s stomach growls.

He grumbles a few token resistances but quickly yields. “We stay one extra night, but no more. I won’t have the Margrave’s men arriving with no one to greet them.”

“Of course not, Your Highness.” Byleth tries to say this with a straight face, but a teasing smile cracks through anyway. “I’ll go discuss with the cooks.”

It turns out that Fort Merceus was well-equipped for their enemy’s victory feast. Most of the ingredients on hand were clearly intended for Imperial dishes, but with Ashe’s guidance, the army cooks are able to whip up a feast more suitable to Faerghus tastes.

The dining hall makes for a lively scene. The drinks flow freely and the food can be piled high on everyone’s plate, something that many of these soldiers haven’t been able to do since before the war, if at all. Adrestia has always had richer soil and greater harvests than frozen Faerghus. Even if this is as far as they can push, it would be enough to keep territories like Galatea from starving again-

“Some wine?”

Dimitri shakes his head slightly as he stops staring into the middle distance and instead looks at Byleth standing next to him. “No thank you.”

“One glass,” she insists. “This is a celebration.”

She knows Dimitri isn’t able to refuse her anything, and he takes the wineglass without any more fuss. Byleth holds her own glass up. “What should we toast to?”

“To Faerghus,” he says as he knocks his glass against hers. The nearby tables glance over at the ringing sound, and Byleth motions with her hand for him to stand and continue. “To Fodlan. To being alive, to friends. I don’t want to imagine where I would be without every person in this room.

“To Ashe, a brilliant archer and an ever better cook.” The flush on Ashe’s cheeks from the wine spreads across his nose.

“To Annette, the hardest-working mage I’ve met, and Mercedes, the most skilled healer.” The two of them clink their glasses together as Annette rests her head on Mercedes’ shoulder.

“To Ingrid and Sylvain, our lancers on the front lines who have never backed down.” Ingrid shoves Sylvain’s arm off of her shoulders, but still looks pleased with herself.

“To Felix, who has the sharpest tongue and blade. To Dedue, who I can never hope to repay for all he’s done over the years.” Felix scoffs but doesn’t shove Sylvain’s other arm off of him. Dedue nods as Ashe excitedly leans in close to say something.

“And of course to our Professor Byleth, our teacher and commander, for bringing us all back together and making sure we survive on the battlefield and off it.”

Byleth jumps in. “To His Highness Dimitri, soon to be king of all Fodlan. With you we’re not just fighting against something. We’re fighting for something.”

“To His Highness!” the room echoes before they all take a drink. Dimitri finishes about half his glass, trying to hide both his discomfort and pleasure at the praise. Byleth drains hers in one gulp and reaches for the bottle on the table to refill it.

After all, she’s still a mercenary at heart. After years of the cheapest booze gold could buy, why shouldn’t she take advantage of the Empire’s finest vintages?

Byleth has happily let the wine go to her head by the time everyone is stumbling out of the dining hall. She grabs Dimitri’s wrist as they’re heading towards the sleeping quarters of the fort, tunelessly humming something that resembles Annette’s latest song, and pulls him into the bedroom she’s claimed for herself.

“You’re in a good mood,” Dimitri says, and Byleth actually  _ giggles _ \- shit, that wine might have been a little stronger than she thought.

“Aren’t you?”

“I’ve never enjoyed victory feasts. At first it was because I always felt I should have done more, then I was...there was how I was before. Now it just feels wrong to celebrate. Someone dressed in this room and slept in this bed, and now they’re probably dead.”

Byleth is trying to listen, she really is, but she’s preoccupied with how well the fabric of Dimitri’s shirt drapes across his chest, and she can’t resist the urge to run her hands up and down his biceps. “Someone who enlisted in the Imperial army. If it’s anyone’s fault they died, it’s Edelgard’s.”

Dimitri does not look convinced.

“Dimitri. I can hear you thinking about something.”

He sighs but doesn’t break away from Byleth’s grip. “It’s bad enough you convinced everyone to have a feast tonight. There’s still so much to do before we march for Enbarr, and that’s without the detour back to Garreg Mach.” 

Dimitri may be wearing an unaffected mask as Byleth’s hands wander over his upper body, but he’s being pulled into her orbit regardless. “You work too hard sometimes,” she says, walking her fingers up between his pecs. “Have you never heard of relaxing?”

He rests his hands on her waist, and she tilts her chin up towards him expectantly. “I haven’t. Maybe you should teach me.”

Byleth bites back her grin at breaking his defenses. She stretches upwards and feels Dimitri’s grip on her tighten, and she pauses an inch from his face. “When we’re back at the monastery I’ll show you how to fish, then.”

“But I already know how to fish,” Dimitri says, and he sounds so sincere Byleth almost apologizes for her joke before he pulls her closer. “And we won’t be there for several days. Maybe there’s something else we can do here?”

She pretends to think for a moment. “I believe I can come up with something.”

Dimitri matches her as she kisses him hungrily, greedily. His shoulders and the back of his neck fascinate her as she grips them. He’s so solid and present, and Byleth is sure she only truly feels alive when she’s in his arms and feeling bruises being pressed into her hips.

She pulls back and grabs a quick breath before biting a mark into the side of his neck, dragging a groan out of him. She usually prefers to linger in this moment until one or both of them is panting and begging for the other to have mercy, but the wine running through her veins tonight inspires her to move quickly. Byleth runs her tongue over the reddening spot while she slides her hands down to the top of Dimitri’s pants and undoes the clasp at the waist.

His pants hit the floor, followed by Byleth’s knees. She looks up at him to drink in his shell-shocked expression. This is hardly the first time they’ve done this, but Dimitri always looks like he can’t believe he could be this lucky.

“You- you don’t have to do this,” he says.

_ Goddess, he’s adorable. _ “Of course I don’t have to.” She languidly strokes his half-hard cock and presses a kiss to his inner thigh. “You always act like this is a sacrifice. Can’t I do something because I want to?”

Dimitri opens his mouth as if to protest, but instead he only groans softly as Byleth takes the tip into her mouth and slowly runs her tongue around the head. His hands fly into her hair on instinct, though he’s still holding onto enough self-control to let Byleth set the pace.

She likes a lot of things about sex with Dimitri, but this is something that she’s really grown to love. She loves his moans and whimpers, his praise, the way she can do no wrong in his eyes. And tonight she loves the act itself. She relishes the way her jaw starts to burn and the salty taste she’s rewarded with whenever she pulls back for a moment to catch her breath.

Dimitri’s mumbling something unintelligible above her, a lot of _ goddess yes there Byleth oh goddess _ . She’s got one hand braced against his leg, and she takes the other to gently apply pressure to his balls. There’s an echoing thud as Dimitri accidentally slams his head into the wall.

Byleth hollows her cheeks as he loses some of that iron grip on his self-control and thrusts into her mouth. His cock hits the back of her throat and she gags, pulling back for a moment to swallow down the extra saliva. She uses her hand instead for a minute until the loss gets to her, and gag reflex or no, she takes as much of him in as she can.

He’s past the point of words now, and Byleth can tell just how achingly hard he is. She keeps playing with his balls with one hand and twisting her other wrist as she strokes the base of his cock while he fucks her mouth.

“I- I-” is all the warning she gets before he comes, hot and salty down her throat. Byleth chokes and struggles to swallow most of it, though some cum and spit spill out of her mouth. It’s sloppy and raw and overwhelming and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She wipes the corner of her mouth with her sleeve as Dimitri slowly comes back to reality. “You’re amazing” are his first words once he’s back with her, and he takes her hand to pull her up to standing.

When he kisses her possessively there’s no way he  _ doesn’t _ taste himself on her tongue, a thought that sends a jolt of heat between her legs. When he breaks the kiss, he almost growls, “Tell me what you want.”

“Anything,” she says, and the almost-unrecognizable sound of her wrecked voice only turns her on more. Her world has shrunk to only this room, and her head is swimming as he lays her down on the bed. Through her lust-and-wine haze she feels Dimitri pulling down her shorts and tights. Just the sensation of fabric running down her legs is enough to drive her crazy. 

Dimitri’s hands are tracing her thighs, making her squirm away even as she parts her legs to invite more of his touch. She bites her lips as one finger slips easily inside her and tastes blood when she feels the stretch of a second. By now he’s learned the right angle to bend them, and as he brushes against that spot Byleth scrambles to grasp at the sheets, trying to find some anchor to ground her as all the blood leaves her head. 

She all but screams as his thumb finds her clit and she’s being driven mad from inside and out. There’s a tickle on her neck that she assumes must be his mouth, but she can’t think straight enough to tell. Her hips buck upwards as she gives in to the pleasure, and all too soon she feels waves of bliss wash over her.

It’s a good minute before her orgasm and its aftershocks finally release her and she’s able to open her eyes again.

“Welcome back,” Dimitri says. Byleth blinks up at him and kisses him lazily, content to lay there boneless until she has enough presence of mind to process her state of half-undress. She opts for sitting up and tossing aside her coat and top as well before burrowing into the blanket.

She feels like she should say something in return to him, but the ‘words’ part of her brain isn’t back up and running yet, and even if it were, she doesn’t think she could wrap her mind around whatever this new, dizzying, warm feeling is. She settles on “That was nice,” and passes off her cringe as a shiver.

Dimitri smiles, a sight Byleth doesn’t take for granted anymore. He’s finished undoing his shirt also and steals part of the blanket as he lies down, resting an arm across her waist. “So do you know whose bed this is?”

“No. Should I?”

“No, I suppose not.” Dimitri rests his head on her shoulder. “I don’t either. I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever be comfortable with, though.”

“Sharing a bed with me?”

Dimitri sputters, and Byleth grins at him to let him off the hook. “I think I can get used to that.” He kisses the hollow where her shoulder joins her neck. “No, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep well in a place we conquered. Even if you can look past the loss of life, there are all the tasks that come with new territory that no one wants to consider after a battle. There are supplies to catalogue, politics to navigate, people to rule...I suppose at the end of this road it’s unavoidable, but it doesn’t make the aftermath any easier to deal with.”

“You really care about these people, don’t you?” Byleth asks softly. “Even though they’re from the Empire?”

“They had no more choice how they were born than I did.”

It always makes her happy to hear Dimitri sounding like the leader he was meant to be, though her smile quickly turns into a yawn. “We still have one more stop before you start dealing with that aftermath.”

“You don’t have to remind me.”

“It was meant as encouragement.” She turns her head to look at him face-to-face. “The war is all but over, Dimitri, but that doesn’t mean you always have to focus on what comes next. You’re allowed to be happy in the moment.”

He leans into her, resting his forehead against hers. “You know I’ve never had that choice before.”

That one sentence carries the same weight as all his confessions, and Byleth feels her heart break for him all over again. “It’s not a choice you’re offered, it’s one you have to take,” she says. “When I was a mercenary, I had to learn to be happy with victory. During the day you can dwell on who died or what comes next or what you should have done differently, but at night you have to celebrate what you can, or you’ll drown.

“I wasn’t very good at celebrating, at first” she continues. “But it’s something I practiced. If even the Ashen Demon can learn it, I’m sure you can master it with practice.”

“Is this why you became a professor years ago?” Dimitri can’t keep the exhaustion from his voice either. “Because you always know what to say?”

“Did you know I only said about three words to Rhea when we first met?”

“The right thing to say must have been nothing, then.”

Byleth hums in agreement. She can feel sleep threatening to take her, and she sees no need to fight back. They leave early in the morning for Garreg Mach, and try as she might, she has yet to master napping on horseback.

As she drifts off, she thinks she hears Dimitri say something, but her tongue is too heavy for her to ask what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> being ingrid is suffering
> 
> thank you all for the sweet comments! I’m the worst at replying directly to them on account of melting into a pile of goo whenever I reread them but know that I am sending the best vibes in your direction
> 
> Recommended soundtrack: “the edge of glory” by lady gaga


	5. Chapter 5

**5 - Love**

Dimitri does not hang Edelgard’s head from the gates of Enbarr when they claim victory. So much is set into motion the moment he and Byleth leave the throne room, there’s no time to do anything but leave her body for the surviving Imperial generals.

Finding Rhea is the first thing to really hammer home that Byleth’s world now turns on a different axis. She’s being held in a cell below the Imperial palace, severely weakened and barely lucid. Flayn’s assessment is that it will take years before she fully recovers, if she ever does. And so in the dark basement, before she’s even had the chance to clean her sword or wipe the blood from her face, her students bear witness to Byleth’s coronation as Archbishop of the Church of Seiros.

For as long as they remain in Enbarr, the only thing that changes is that half the Lions now call her “Your Grace” with various levels of consistency. Felix flat-out will not say it; Annette keeps tripping over her greetings halfway through and calling her “Profess-your Grace;” Mercedes seeks out any excuse to address her by title, always sounding like a proud older sister.

When Dimitri addresses her softly as “Your Grace,” she insists once more that he can call her by her name and decidedly ignores the blush spreading across her face.

-

Their march back to Garreg Mach is their last trip as a unified army and as the Blue Lions house. For most of them it’s only a brief stop to let their horses rest and to pick up the regalia they’ll need for Dimitri’s own coronation in Fhirdiad, but Byleth and a few others will be staying to begin picking up the pieces of the Church.

It’s only been a few weeks since she was last here, but something in the air feels different as she wanders the grounds. Luckily the monastery is still largely empty of anyone who would disturb her even with her new title. Byleth takes a brief pause from her rounds as she passes the graveyard, and crouches, resting on her heels, in front of one of the headstones.

“You weren’t able to keep me away from the Church after all.” She runs her finger over the name  _ Jeralt Eisner _ . “I hope you never regretted bringing me here. I’ve never regretted coming with.” Above his name, Byleth clears the dust from  _ Sitri Eisner _ . “Jeralt said to give your ring to someone I care for as much as he cared for you, but I don’t think it will fit on even his little finger.”

She rises and continues meandering the familiar grounds as the sun starts to set, past the stables and gardens, coming to a stop in the Blue Lions classroom. Other than the dust that has settled on the neglected textbooks, it looks the same as five years ago - there’s even bits of her ambush lecture diagrams still visible in the corners of the chalkboard.

“I should have known you’d be here.” Byleth turns toward the sound. With the golden sunset illuminating his back, Dimitri looks like he’s glowing.

“There are a lot of memories here.”

“There certainly are.” Dimitri takes a seat at what was once his usual desk and rests his head on one hand. “Wasn’t it Verdant Moon when it was so hot you were wearing a spare summer uniform? I don’t think anyone was paying attention to your lecture that day.”

“Ah, so that’s why you and Sylvain both failed your paladin exams that month. I thought you just hated stable duty that much.”

“Couldn’t both things be true?”

Byleth bites back a smile and sits next to him, resting her hand gently on his. “You leave tomorrow, don’t you?”

“We do.” 

Dimitri will be taking most of his classmates with him as his honor guard to lay the groundwork of rebuilding a continent. Byleth knows that he has to leave, has even told him so in her own words, but selfishly she wants to cling to him and keep him close. What good was winning the war if she can’t have what she wants?

As if reading her mind, Dimitri lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses her fingers. “I believe at the moment you outrank me, Your Grace. Say the word and I’ll have no choice but to stay.”

“You and I both know that’s not true, _Your_ _Highness_.” Despite the jab, Byleth is afraid that she of all people might choke up if she says any more about the future, and she does have a reputation to maintain. Instead she laces their fingers together and rests her head on his shoulder. It’s always been easier for her to focus on the present. 

They stay like that as they reminisce and the sun dips below the horizon, leaving the classroom cloaked in dark blue. Finally, Byleth says, “You should get some rest. It’s a long ride ahead of you tomorrow.”

“Would you walk me back to my room?”

They push the bench back with a loud scraping sound as they stand. Byleth takes Dimitri’s offered hand, and closes the door to the classroom behind her as they step into the cool night air.

-

Byleth had taken one look at the list of preparations Seteth handed her and had been sure she was about to faint. She spends most of the next few weeks locked in their former war council room with him, Flayn, and Mercedes as the four of them outline the Church’s moving pieces for a coronation.

“Every country in Fódlan is built on their own traditions, but none more than Faerghus,” Seteth explains as Byleth reads and rereads the same sentence of the liturgy she’ll have to recite. “But given that we’re crowning the first king of the continent in hundreds of years, we’ll have to incorporate Imperial and Alliance customs as well.”

“The Alliance piece is easy enough. House Gloucester will object and the rest of the nobles will outvote them,” Byleth says. She doesn’t expect Lorenz to have any real objections, but he does have a strong sense of tradition and duty. Remembering all the tea invitations, Mercedes agrees.

“The Empire has their own orb and sceptre, do they not?” Flayn asks no one in particular. “Perhaps we can use their orb and the Faerghus scepter, or the other way around?”

Byleth holds her place in her book with her finger and closes the cover. “‘You kneel now in humility before the People and the Church. In the name of the Goddess, do you swear to serve your fellow men and women, to lead by example instead of force, to heed wise counsel, and to strive for- to strive for-’” She flips the book back open. “Ugh. ‘To strive for peace but not fear war.’”

“I’m sure you can keep the book with you if you need to,” Mercedes says, placing a plate of sweets and a cup of black tea in front of her.

“It’s my first public act as Archbishop.” Byleth bites into a bun. “Rhea coul' pro’ly do this wi’ her eyes closed,” - she swallows - “and I don’t want to let her down.” She washes the bite down with a sip of the hot tea. “Besides, Dimitri deserves nothing less than perfection.”

Mercedes hums thoughtfully but doesn’t elaborate.

Byleth hopes they’re all doing okay in Fhirdiad. Dimitri will definitely overwork himself if given the opportunity, and when he’d been reminded of how much of a role the Duke Fraldarius plays in the royal court Felix had looked like he was about to throw up. She silently asks Sothis to check in on them from wherever she is and give Dedue, Ingrid, and Sylvain some extra patience.

They’re finally able to reunite the night before the coronation. After all the formalities required for the arrival of an official Church delegation, Byleth and Dimitri are able to slip away to his bedroom and the balcony overlooking the heart of the city.

It’s there that Dimitri offers her a silver ring and asks if she’ll have him for the rest of his days. In return, Byleth presses the ring her father left her into his open palm and insists that he have her as well. She’s collected a lot of titles in a short period of time, but when Dimitri murmurs “my beloved” before kissing her gently, she knows she’s gained the only one that truly matters to her.

The next morning, Byleth almost tears up as Dimitri approaches the dais of the throne room. He’s shining in his blue and silver regalia, with his hair tied neatly back and the scepter of Loog in his hand instead of his lance. Ingrid, newly knighted as the head of his personal guard, bears the Blaiddyd banner at Byleth’s side, and Byleth kindly pretends she doesn’t hear her sniff loudly. She remembers every line of the coronation ceremony, and when King Dimitri rises, he shares a smile with only her before he turns to greet his subjects.

-

News of their engagement spreads quickly, and they once again aren’t able to spare a moment for each other. Byleth is almost nostalgic for the carefree days of planning a coronation - a wedding that formally joins the heads of Church and State might just be the biggest event the continent has ever seen.

Byleth channels every skill she learned from her months of teaching to delegate the unimportant choices (“As long as there  _ is _ food, Ashe, neither of us cares what the menu is.”) and tap into reserves of patience she didn’t know she had (“Alois, no one is ‘giving me away.’ No, Seteth will be officiating.”). Still, some pieces of the planning are inescapable.

“You’re sure we can’t elope,” Byleth sighs as yet another merchant leaves her receiving chambers, all of their dresses rejected.

“Certainly not, Lady Byleth!” Flayn looks appalled that she would even ask. “Now that was the last merchant who submitted a design for consideration, so you’ll need to choose from the two or three that you didn’t hate. What about the one with the dropped sleeves?”

What feels like an eternity later, they’ve formally announced the wedding date, sent notice to every town in addition to the personal invitations for each noble family, and enlisted help to see to all the smaller details. All that’s left is to iron out the political details, which gives Dimitri the excuse he needed to ride to Garreg Mach so they could negotiate in person.

“Ingrid told me we couldn’t elope,” Dimitri says over tea.

“Flayn told me the same thing.”

“What if we could?” Byleth blinks, and Dimitri repeats, “If we eloped right now, what would we do?”

Byleth has a ready answer. “Take the Lions and go to Duscur. Dedue and Ashe can cook, Mercedes can officiate, and we can hide out there for a few weeks to take a well-deserved rest from putting this country back together. Maybe honeymoon in Almyra and visit Claude, see how he’s doing.”

“...You’ve thought a lot about this.”

“It’s either daydream about it or admit that the possible shades of blue for the tablecloths all look the same.”

Supposedly, their afternoons should be more conflict-driven as they each fight for the best deal for the church or kingdom, respectively. Byleth is sure there will be plenty of time for that in the future, but as far as their union goes, they agree on terms quickly. They’ll both reign from Fhirdiad as much as possible, though Byleth will need to split her time between there and Garreg Mach. Seteth and Felix are the logical choices both as stand-ins for their stations when one or the other is called away and as advisors to act as a check on Byleth and Dimitri’s influence on each other.

They sent a letter to Felix the first day Dimitri arrived at the monastery on the assumption that Sylvain or Ingrid will probably be able to talk him down from regicide by the day of the wedding. They’ve somehow neglected to let Seteth know that they finished negotiations days ago.

Eventually though they do have to tell Seteth, who congratulates both of them for spending so long to make sure they came to the optimal arrangement for both of them. Byleth suspects the praise may have been less than sincere as he delightfully rearranges their schedules to cut out their remaining free afternoons.

The last week before the wedding is a whirlwind of last-minute choices that really shouldn’t matter, and yet Byleth finds herself pacing a hole into Mercedes’ floor the night before the ceremony.

“What if the silverware really  _ does _ clash with the glassware?” she says frantically, and wishes not for the first time that Sothis were here, if only to let her know she had truly lost it this time. Annette rubs her shoulders as Mercedes hands her a cup of tea that smells like chamomile and another unrecognizable scent.

“It’s calming herbs,” she explains, and Byleth just about drinks the entire cup in one sip. She falls asleep quickly after that and dreams of the goddess telling her that yes, she has truly lost it, but the wedding will be lovely anyway.

Dimitri does cry as Byleth walks down the aisle of the restored Garreg Mach cathedral. He’s far from the only one - Mercedes and Annette are openly weeping, and from the corner of her eye she sees Sylvain pull out a handkerchief - but her eyes are only for him. In a wavering voice he pledges his heart and his life to her, to love and cherish her until death parts them. Byleth keeps a better grip on her emotions as she echoes him, but she can’t keep the smile off her face as he takes her in his arms and kisses her for all of Fódlan to see.

Byleth knows that there was a dinner, but she doesn’t remember eating or drinking or which set of china was set out on which tables. Apparently part of a Fódlan wedding includes every noble in attendance greeting them and announcing their gifts, which she immediately proceeds to not remember. (She notes Seteth’s quill scratching at a nearby table, and mouths a sincere ‘thank you’ in his direction between guests.) The only person she pays any attention to is Hilda, who brings Claude’s regrets that he couldn’t attend, and if they come to Almyra next spring they can each have their pick of the newborn wyverns.

After dinner there’s dancing. Byleth and Dimitri spend most of their evening politely declining requests to trade partners, though they make a few exceptions for the Lions. Ashe steps on her foot (“Self-taught, sorry”); Dedue is surprisingly graceful for a man of his height and bulk; Annette is very talented at being dipped. 

Sylvain takes her hand and spins her away while Felix and Dimitri share something that looks more like an argument than a dance. “Is it too late to try and woo you?” he asks.

Byleth laughs as he leads her through some overly-complicated waltz steps. “The ink might not be dry yet if you wanted to try and smudge the names.”

“You know, ‘Dimitri’ into ‘Sylvain’ would be easy enough, but I don’t think I could pass off ‘Alexandre’ as ‘Jose.’ If only I’d called him ‘Alex’ when we were kids.” It looks like Felix and Dimitri’s discussion is wrapping up, so Sylvain bows to her as they cross back across the dance floor. “Take good care of His Majesty.”

“As if I would do anything else,” she says, and Sylvain winks at her as he and Felix head off in search of refreshments.

The hours fly by until it’s finally late enough that they can say goodnight to their guests. The party itself will continue until dawn, but even the most uptight Faerghan knows that the wedding couple has other things to attend to.

Dimitri effortlessly bridal-carries her across the threshold of the room Byleth had used as her professor’s quarters. It’s another place where very little has changed - the bed is larger and higher quality now, but there’s still the journal sitting open on the desk and a handful of broken swords she’d meant to get repaired. As the Archbishop, she could have had her choice of finer rooms, but there’s something about the simplicity of the dorms that she doesn’t want to let go of.

When the door clicks shut and her feet touch the floor, Byleth wants nothing more than to throw herself at Dimitri like she did years ago. He has the same idea, but, “Flayn might kill me if I tore that dress off you,” he says, and Byleth reluctantly lets that idea go. “Besides,” - and his voice drops an octave - “we have enough time tonight to take it slow.”

She shivers and yields.

Dimitri gently leads her to the chair in front of her desk and sits her down, and starts removing the pins holding her hairstyle in place.

“I love this color,” he says, voice still soft and low. “I loved the blue, and I love it now. Did you know that when you returned back then, I thought you were the most beautiful person I had ever seen?” He drops a few pins on the desk and keeps working his fingers through the layers to find the rest. Byleth lets the warmth of his touch and his words wash over her and start to heat her up. “I assumed that if I confessed then, even if you were able to look past my being a student, you would have been too busy with Rhea and the rest of the knights to respond in kind.”

He presses a kiss to the crown of her head. “I truly thought that what happened during Guardian Moon was a fluke and that I had just been in the right place at the right time.” Byleth’s hair now falls freely over her shoulders again, and aside from a few waves that she’ll need to wash out later, it looks the same as always. Dimitri cards his fingers through it once more before taking her hand and guiding her back to standing. “I could have saved myself years of heartbreak.”

When he kisses her, it could almost be mistaken for chaste if not for the heat Byleth can feel in his grip. When she tries to deepen it, though, he pulls back. “Not yet,” he says, and spins her slowly so that her back is to him.

Byleth feels him start to undo the clasps and straps at the top of her back and pulls her hair forward over one shoulder obligingly. He kisses the exposed side of her neck as he slowly takes the dress and her apart. “I think I loved you from the start,” he murmurs in her ear, and the tickle sends a pleasant shiver down her spine. “But I only realized it during that Lone Moon.” Whenever he undoes another button, he kisses the newly-exposed part of her back like it’s something sacred. “There’s a lot to regret from that time, but not the hours I spent with you, my beloved.”

The last of the bindings come undone, and Dimitri guides the dress’s sleeves off of her arms. Now that the waist isn’t so confining, Byleth is able to step cleanly out of it, leaving her in just her low-backed slip. When she turns to face him again, she watches his gaze sweep down and back up her body. “Goddess, you’re beautiful,” he says as some of his iron-gripped composure slips.

She kisses him hard, crashing their lips together, and he doesn’t seem to have the willpower to resist this time. His hands rest on her hips and she feels the friction from his grasp through the thin fabric. She explores his mouth, savoring the way he tastes as he runs his hands up and down her curves.

The thinness of her slip only highlights that Dimitri is still fully dressed, something that Byleth decides is completely unfair. This time she’s the one to break the kiss as she shoves his jacket off of him and busies herself with his waistcoat. “Goddess knows when I fell in love with you,” she says, “but you’ve always been magnetic to me. I chose the Blue Lions over the others for a reason.”

The waistcoat joins the jacket on the floor as she finally gets to work on his shirt. She mirrors his actions from earlier, kissing a line along his collarbone and down his chest as she gets it open inch by agonizingly-slow inch. “I couldn’t have known where that path would lead, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it if it meant risking where we arrived.”

When she reaches the last button, she takes a moment to just drink her  _ husband _ in - to appreciate the way he’s looking at her, to let her eyes roam across his chest and abdomen, to maybe get a little ahead of herself and imagine him above her, holding himself up by his forearms so they can be as close as possible as he-

Byleth suddenly feels incredibly warm. Her nipples rub against the silk of her slip with every breath, a vicious circle of friction that leaves her breathing faster and makes her feel like she might just explode. This doesn’t escape Dimitri’s notice, and when he kisses his way into her mouth, he also rubs a thumb over one of the raised points, pulling a groan from deep in her throat.

She has to break away for a moment to demand, “Bed. Now.”

Dimitri obliges. He walks her backwards to the bed, and when her knees hit the edge of the mattress, she pulls him down with her. Byleth is certain she won’t ever be able to stop kissing him - his mouth, his jawline, the shell of his ear, anything she can reach. He landed in the perfect position and she can’t keep herself from grinding against his thigh as she drives herself mad.

“You’re so beautiful,” he repeats, and kisses the pulsepoint in her neck while he grabs and caresses her breast, and Byleth is just so  _ close _ to tipping over the edge she can practically  _ taste  _ it. Every part of her feels red-hot and she’s arching into and jumping away from every touch at the same time. When Dimitri traces his hand down her torso to that sweet spot between her legs, the brief focused touch is enough to push her over, and the heat that had been pooling in the base of her stomach releases all at once.

The first thing Byleth feels when she comes back to herself is, to her surprise, embarrassment - neither of them are even fully undressed yet and she had already come like some overeager teenager. That is, until she looks up at Dimitri and sees something indescribable in his expression. He looks like he might break in half just from Byleth looking back at him, and she’s powerless to do anything except hold him close and kiss him as she recovers from her orgasm’s aftershocks.

“Did that help take the edge off?” he asks once her breathing returns to a normal pace, and she smiles hazily at him. When he reaches for the bottom of her slip, Byleth lifts her hips and then her shoulders to let him lift it up and over her head. “I want to make you half as happy as you make me.”

She shivers as Dimitri looks her over. It may be nothing he hasn’t seen before, but the weight of the ring on her finger makes it all feel so much more real. This is her husband, her  _ love _ , and even if they’re apart her bed will always be his.

He must be achingly hard judging from the bulge in his trousers, but he pays himself no mind as he kisses her neck, her jaw, the corner of her mouth before starting to trail downwards. He murmurs sweet nothings as he lingers at her breasts, kissing the tops of each nipple and indulging her as she arcs upwards towards him. He bites at the thin skin covering her ribs, sending jolts of electricity everywhere through her body. Even though she just came, Byleth is already starting to feel the familiar tension wind itself slowly in her core.

When Dimitri finally reaches his goal, he doesn’t hold back. Byleth can feel just how wet she is when he experimentally runs his hand along her opening. She props herself up on her elbows to watch and swallows dryly as he licks her slick off his fingers before diving into the source with his mouth.

It’s something unfocused at first as it always is, but sooner rather than later Dimitri’s tongue finds its way to her clit, and the vague feelings start to coalesce into something warm and pulsing. He’s gotten so good at knowing when to speed up and when to back off that she quickly finds herself back at her breaking point.

“D-Dimitri,” she stammers out and pushes weakly at him to get his attention. He pauses and lifts his head to look at her. His pupil has swallowed any color in his good eye, and Byleth knows she matches him. “Don’t- I want-” Was it always this hard to speak? She swallows and tries again. “I want you inside me when I come.”

Dimitri closes his eye and licks his lips but otherwise freezes, and Byleth knows that she’s finally broken through the last of his self-control. He can’t seem to undo his belt and remove his pants fast enough, and she takes advantage of his own flustered state to climb on top of him and straddle his hips.

“ _ Byleth _ ,” he groans as she takes him in. They stay still for a moment to adjust, but soon Byleth isn’t able to hold herself back and she starts to ride in a quickly-accelerating rhythm. Dimitri lifts himself up as far as he can to kiss her, and she relishes the taste of herself on his tongue as she takes him as deep as she can. She feels  _ complete _ \- they’re sharing their breath, their pulses, every sign of life, and it’s overwhelming to feel so human all at once.

Her second orgasm peaks more slowly. She can feel the pressure slowly unwind inside her, and she’s able to clutch onto Dimitri’s shoulders as the flood reaches her head and she cries out in wordless bliss. It’s the same intensity diluted across nearly a minute, and so she can feel Dimitri’s shallow thrusts upwards as she clenches around him and he also comes with a shuddering sigh.

“I love you,” one of them breathes.

“I love you,” the other responds.

They don’t separate for as long as they can stand it. When Byleth does finally lift herself off him to fall next to him, Dimitri wraps himself so entirely around her that there’s almost no difference in the amount of space they share.

There’s nothing left to say to each other that they haven’t already said that night. In public they bound the Archbishop and King together; in private, Byleth and Dimitri. And even more secretly, in a part of herself that even she didn’t know existed, Byleth feels something almost like a pulse in her chest as she gazes at her husband and matches her breathing to his.

“My beloved,” he sighs, and kisses her softly.

Byleth suddenly understands the reason people pray. To have something so incredible, so all-consuming surround you - how does one person take it all in and survive?

But then she remembers that she doesn’t have to hold it all by herself. That she doesn’t have to bear anything on her own, that she can give back whatever she needs to or wants to. Isn’t that what she herself told Dimitri months ago? She wants to share everything with him. Whatever frustration and anger awaits them, whatever pain, whatever joy, whatever happiness comes their way. 

“I love you.” She wants to say it again and again as that feeling from the Goddess Tower years ago bursts into life. So she does.

-

_ Paired with the end of the war, the joyous marriage of Byleth, the newly-appointed archbishop, and Dimitri, the newly-crowned king of Faerghus, gave the people of Fódlan much to celebrate. As leaders of church and state respectively, at times they engaged in heated debate. Even still, when enjoying a long horse ride or a quiet evening, they were not as the world saw them, but rather two adoring spouses, desperately in love. They remained as such for the rest of their days. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they made it y’all!
> 
> this was a lot of firsts for me - first FE fic, first het, first smut, first completed multi-chapter - so thank you for sticking with me through it. i do have a side oneshot planned, so if you like Claude, keep an eye out for if/when this becomes a series
> 
> recommended soundtrack: “god only knows” by the beach boys
> 
> as always, thanks for reading!


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